"She's fine. I told her about the plan and she told your cousin and she reported his response as 'tentatively positive'."

"Well, that's something."

"Yeah, I--shouldn't stress out over whether this plan works or we have to come up with another one until I've managed to bring back your brother. And your friend with the terrible husband, I sort of promised your cousin she would be second."

"I'm entirely in favor of that."

"Somehow I'm not surprised. Gosh, what are we going to tell these people when they wake up, I'm really tempted to open with 'hi I'm fantastically powerful and the reason you're alive go hug assorted loved ones you're welcome' but you'd know better than I would if that's a terrible idea."

"Being awakened, at least by Mandos, is tremendously disorienting and the practice is to have only one person present and a few weeks to readjust."

"My first instinct is 'the Valar really aren't very good at their jobs' but my second instinct is to remind myself that it's mostly their priorities and not their competence that are questionable. The experience might or might not be terribly different my way. There's...probably going to need to be more than one person around at the very beginning, but we can shoo everyone except a designated person as soon as it's no longer magically necessary."

"I think everyone will not mind too much being disoriented."

"I don't imagine so. Hm. Do you think it would be better to err on the side of trying more often, so I can do it as soon after I'm technically capable as possible, or less often, so there's less specific instances of false hope?"

"Keep in mind that we think of time very differently from you. Once a year strikes me as frequent attempts."

"Well. If I don't have it down in a year I'll be disappointed in myself."

"You know, there's a lot to be said for Men. If you can do it in a year then we'll be fine waiting."

"I got from almost zero to where I am now in seven years. I don't think the difference between where I am now and where I need to be to start raising the dead is as much as a seventh of that, especially since I wasn't really actively pushing myself before I arrived.

"...that's much faster than I was expecting. I suppose I should have thought it through more, with how young you are."

"Yeah, I would have started sooner, probably, but if you're younger than fourteen and doing anything not tiny and trivial people generally start giving your parents suspicious looks. Encouraging a kid to do painful things is generally looked down on."

"I can understand why. I think the Eldar have the same principle, my parents just didn't really take principles of our people very seriously."

"Come to think of it I don't think I've heard anything about your mom, should she be on my list too?"

"She's not dead."

"Should she be in a different part of the list, the general to-do list rather than specifically the 'people to raise from the dead' list."

"I don't think so. She decided to stay in Valinor. I'm sure that if she changed her mind in the intervening centuries, the Valar declined to permit her to leave, but we can't fight the Valar and even if we could the world would be destroyed in the fight and the Valar confining people in their paradise - who might actually consent to be there, when last we spoke she did not want to leave - isn't worth that."

"...Huh."

"I appreciate the offer, though."

"Morgoth is a Vala, right, maybe once I'm strong enough to destroy him I can figure out some kind of communications system that can sneak past them so you could talk to her or something."

"Not sure there'd be much to say. But thanks."

"You're welcome." And she is--not judging, she knows nothing about this woman whatsoever, really, just because she's unable to model the idea of letting your kids run off to risk their lives and staying behind where it's safe doesn't mean it's totally unreasonable, just that she's not perfect at modelling things. Right.